George Philip (cartographer)
cartographer

George Philip (1800–1882) was a Scottish cartographer, map publisher and founder of the publishing house George Philip & Son Ltd.
Family
George Philip was born in Huntly, Aberdeenshire, to a staunchly Calvinist family. In 1819 George travelled to Liverpool where his brother Robert, who was a nonconformist minister, lived. Here George made his home and in 1819 George became assistant to the Liverpool bookseller, William Grapel. In 1834, Philip set up his own business as a bookseller and stationer in Paradise Street, Liverpool. He rapidly expanded the business by producing books, particularly educational works and maps. Within his first year of trading to keep up with demand he had to move his business into larger premises at the Atlas Buildings in South Castle Street. George and his wife Jane had a daughter Jane (born 1827) and one son, George (1823–1902). In 1848, George Jr. was admitted as a partner into the family publishing business now called George Philip & Son Ltd.
“George Philip (cartographer)” enters the record as cartographer. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what George, Philip and cartographer can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 9, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q5543381. VIAF identifies the subject as 99896329. The Library of Congress control number is nr93003865. 4 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1800, 1882, 1819 and 1834.
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This entry incorporates text from “George Philip (cartographer)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.